Partner Turn and Talk in Classroom Lessons

I use partner turn and talk as well as Think-Pair-Share at least once in all my lessons.  We received a whole series of professional development on the value of student-to-student discourse increasing student engagement and learning.  It is very important to establish clear expectations for how you expect students to act when talking to their partner.  When I discuss this with students in lower grades I always mention that when they are talking they are not touching their partner if they are sitting on the floor. All our teachers use these strategies, but not all do as good a job about practicing the procedures.  Depending on the purpose of the discussion you do not always need everyone to share out to the big group. Sometimes the sharing our serves as ongoing assessment if the students are learning the key concepts of the lesson, but other times you just want them to share their thoughts with a partner.